A Fortuitous Mistake that Saved Lives- The Invention of the first Implantable Pacemaker

In the world of scientific invention, a minute can be pivotal. A spark can trigger a life-changing idea in just a minute; also, 60 seconds is all enough to make a huge mistake. Perhaps in some extraordinary cases, both phenomena can occur at the exact moment. This was the case for Wilson Greatbatch, an inventor who, in just a minute, made an error that led to a life-saving invention and forever changed cardiovascular healthcare.

Wilson Greatbatch was an American engineer who had a great passion for electronics. In 1956, Greatbatch was building a heart rhythm recording device. He placed a wrong resistor-which was more powerful than the one he usually used in the circuit and noticed that the circuit emitted electrical pulses instead of recording. It made him think of the timing of the heartbeat. At that moment, he realized that this device could help an unhealthy heart stay in rhythm by delivering shocks to help the heart muscles to pump and contract blood. In the barn behind his home, the electrical engineering professor worked to use his inadvertent discovery to create the world's first implantable pacemaker.

Before this time, pacemakers were bulky, external units that required the use of mains power, as battery technology had not yet advanced sufficiently to allow implantation. Over the following two years, Greatbatch managed to miniaturize and package the device. By 1960 the pacemaker had been implanted in the first human patient, a 77-year-old man who lived for a further 18 months. In the 1970s, Greatbatch developed a corrosion-free lithium battery so that pacemakers could run for a straight ten years instead of the previous 2-year lifespan. Further developments of modern pacemakers were done through the years by the innovative minds that followed him. Today, Wilson's accidental invention, the pacemaker, is implanted in more than 600,000 new human hearts every year.

Greatbatch's invention was one of the most important of the 20th century, giving a renewed lease on life to millions of people in the decades after his serendipitous discovery. He once quoted, "Failure is a learning experience, and the guy who has never failed has never done anything.” Greatbatch was a tenacious inventor who reminds us that failure itself is often the heartbeat of discovery, making us confident to endeavor new things in life.